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Thursday, 22 February 2018

I know that practically everyone on the internet has already read this quotation, but every time I see it I start laughing…

Writing a novel – actually picking the words and filling in paragraphs – is a tremendous pain in the ass. Now that TV’s so good and the Internet is an endless forest of distraction, it’s damn near impossible. That should be taken into account when ranking the all-time greats. Somebody like Charles Dickens, for example, who had nothing better to do except eat mutton and attend public hangings, should get very little credit.

Friday, 15 December 2017

Thousands of children, fleeing war and persecution, are sleeping in cold and unsanitary conditions across Europe this winter, an utter scandal when you consider how wealthy European countries are. In Calais, some children were sleeping in the snow earlier this week; one had contracted hypothermia.

From an email by Margot Bernard, member of the Safe Passage French Field Team:

One girl I met last week slept rough in Northern France for nine months this year. When I asked her about why she had not moved in to sheltered accommodation before she said ‘I did not know there is a legal way to safety’. Many refugees think the only way to sanctuary is in the hands of abusive traffickers or jumping on the back of a lorry. That’s where Safe Passage steps in. We provide legal support and information so children can travel through safe and legal routes.

Safe Passage is a charity which seeks to reunite refugee children with family in the UK legally. They are also trying to identify 250 children to bring to the UK under the Dubs Scheme. It has taken 14 months for the first child to be brought from Greece to Britain under this scheme, but at last tthe first child has just arrived and three more vulnerable children are on their way from the camps.

To support their work with these most vulngerable of children, Safe Passage are holding a charity auction, which is open until Wednesday 20 December.

If you are interested in taking tea with Jude Law, winning VIP tickets to the recording of Have I Got News for You or owning a picture by Gruffalo artist Axel Scheffler, you can read about the auction and bid here.

Thursday, 16 November 2017

It’s been a long time since I last did a gallimaufry of links... I don’t seem to have as much time, or perhaps inclination, to wander around the internets as before. But here are some things I found interesting, and you might too.

[It was] published in 1928, two years after Mrs Dalloway, and [was] as much a departure in narrative technique as Woolf’s novel. It’s a portrait of village life in Bengal, but is as distant from the dutiful social realism such a project would normally entail as Mrs Dalloway is from a 19th-century-style study of upper-class society. Pather Panchali is an experiment in exploring how narrative might follow the momentary transitions of our consciousness of the world.

Friday is always a joyful day in Gallimaufry Towers because it is my day off. And now I can start my happy day with a poem, emailed by Picador. The selection has included poetry that is recent and old, famous and less well-known, and has introduced me to new writers. In the last few weeks I’ve read work by Gillian Clarke, Jackie Kay, William Shakespeare, Lady Catherine Dyer (no I’d never heard of her either) and Robert Frost. If you’d like to wake up to a poem every Friday morning, then you can subscribe here.

And if you’re keen to discover new things, WomensArt1 on Twitter posts artwork by women – photographs, paintings, sculpture, craft – the range is amazing. And in particular, look at this!

Another new thing (to me, anyway): I am not very music-minded and had never heard of Laura Cannell before a friend kindly gave me Simultaneous Flight Movement, and now I can’t stop playing it, it’s completely addictive. It was recorded in Southwold Lighthouse and every time I listen to it I’m transported to the Suffolk coast, it is wide skies and lonely marshes turned into music. You can listen to it here.

Finally, I hate to think about Christmas before December but when I saw Polly Whistle’s beautiful angels I couldn’t resist buying a couple from her Etsy shop. They are exquisite. Look!

(Angels by Polly Whistle, anxious to fly on to my Christmas tree as soon as possible)

Artwork and captions in this post are all taken from WomensArt1 on Twitter except for the last photograph.

Friday, 09 June 2017

(William Blake, image of Albion from the A Large Book of Designs, found here)

Over the past year it’s been hard not to feel that Anglophone electorates have been making outlandish poor decisions. But today’s British general election results, with a hung parliament, have cheered me up no end. I do believe this is a good result, tempering the hard right, and forcing parties to collaborate. Of course I could be completely wrong! But right now I am so happy! Well done, British people! Well done, young people! Well done, Jeremy Corbyn!

Now I am off to enjoy the weekend with a glass of wine and Variable Cloud (Carmen Martín Gaite, translated by Margaret Jull Costa). This is a novel which had lain about unread and unloved for twenty years and was almost taken to the charity bookshop when I had a small clear-out in August. But its time had come! And it is excellent.

Thursday, 16 June 2016

(Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before I swore – but was I sober when I swore? And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.

Illustration by Niroot Puttapipat of Quatrain 70 of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, trans. Edward Fitzgerald; London, Folio Society, 2009; found here at the artist’s blog)

It’s been a little while since the last gallimaufry of links and, since I’m not feeling like writing (periodically, all the hate, violence, greed and intolerance in the world make me despair as I’m sure they do you and this is one of those times), here are a few posts you may find interesting.

For those of us despairing at the sheer depressing idiocy and duplicity that has characterised the Brexit debate on both sides, yesterday’s frolics on the Thames provided some light relief even as it reinforced doubts about the nation’s sanity:

One day, years from now, when I’m sitting in my armchair by the fire, my son will come up to me and ask, ‘Daddy... what did you do during the EU referendum?’

And I’ll put down my newspaper, remove the pipe from my mouth, and I’ll say, ‘Well, son. I went on a boozed-up boat trip down the Thames with Nigel Farage while men from Ukip shouted ‘Get a job!’ at Bob Geldof as he flicked V-signs at them from a pleasure cruiser and Scottish fishermen squirted water at rival campaigners in a dinghy and Members of Parliament gazed from the Commons in disbelief and 100 people on a bridge sang Rule Britannia.’

If you are concerned about refugees, do consider signing the UNHCR’s petition urging governments to protect them and ensure their rights. (via Neil Gaiman)

It’s not often there’s good news about the environment, but here’s a nice story about Văcărești, an abandoned plot of urban wasteland in the heart of Bucharest which has been reclaimed by nature.

Spanish Lit Month 2016 is around the corner in July. As I am reliably unreliable when it comes to any sort of readalong (cough, Little, Big) I am planning to read Julián Ayesta’s Helena, or The Sea in Summer because I believe that even I can manage 124 pages in 31 days. (Although I’m not quite confident enough to add my name to the list.) Richard is also co-hosting a readalong of The Man Without Qualities; I would love to join in as I’ve meant to read this for ages but see above, unreliable. I have a collection of Musil’s short stories so might indulge in a Sympathy Read.

Sunday, 24 August 2014

(Library, diorama made and photographed by Lori Nix, 2007, from her series ‘The City’; from her website)

While I do not own an e-reader and don’t see myself purchasing one in the near future, I am not an adherent to the ‘Apocalypse rides on the coat-tails of e-books’ school of philosophy any more than I believe that anyone who persists in buying paperbacks is naught but a puppet to the dark forces of ‘legacy’ publishing and a Luddite impeding the free flow of great literature. I am bored with all the heated quarrels pitting paper against electronics and the wild predictions, and I have given up reading most articles with anything about e-books in the title. However, I have recently come across two pieces I found interesting on this very subject.

One, from the BBC, describes a reading revolution which is occurring in Africa. Hitherto, poor infrastructure has made distribution of books very difficult (and that is just one of the many headaches publishers in Africa have faced). In many areas away from larger towns and cities, readers and also aspiring writers have been left stranded, unable to access books. But in the wake of the astounding adoption of mobile phones across the whole continent over the past decade, smartphones are becoming increasingly popular. With them has opened up the possibility of downloading and reading books – any books! Books written in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Britain, France, the US; books translated from the Chinese, Latvian and Finnish. Books full of stories, ideas, challenges. Until global poverty has been properly addressed, millions of Africans will not have the means to afford a smartphone nor the access to electricity with which to charge it, but for many of the better-off this is hugely exciting and full of implications for the future.

The other article, in the Guardian, concerned some research which suggested that readers of a text on Kindles recalled less of the plot than readers of the same text on paper. The research only involved 50 readers, and of the Kindle readers only two were ‘experienced’ Kindle readers, so I think it needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt, but in conjunction with another small study of Norwegian students, also referenced in the article, it starts to raise questions about the limitations of electronic devices for certain sorts of reading. What do you think? Have any of you had experiences which fit with this? I used to copy-edit and proofread and I must say I didn’t work as well on-screen as on paper – but then I assumed that was because I was a dullard. Maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t...

Monday, 04 August 2014

A little belatedly I’ve discovered that litlove and Harriet have both very kindly awarded me a Very Inspiring Blogger award. Thank you so much! I am really pleased, and touched, and surprised too. Sadly, I can’t nominate them back: both of them have been very inspirational for me.

These are the rules for the Very Inspiring Blogger awards:

Thank and link to the person who nominated you.

List the rules and display the award.

Share seven facts about yourself.

Nominate fifteen other amazing blogs and comment on their posts to let them know they have been.

Optional: display the award logo on your blog and follow the blogger who nominated you.

Nominating fifteen weblogs was impossible. There are so many inspiring ones to choose from and I should hate any blogger not listed here to suppose that I don’t find his or hers also inspiring (this anxiety about missing someone out and upsetting them is behind my decision not to have a blogroll here, although I’m not always sure it’s a good decision). To try and limit the insane length of my list, I decided not to include anyone whom I believe has already received the award – so no Stefanie, Tom, Hayley, Kaggsy, Annabel, Simon, Dolce Bellezza, Alex, Jenny, Mary, Vicky, Ana, Danielle, Caroline or Richard. Some people might be surprised to find themselves here since I have never commented on their weblogs, I naturally incline towards lurkerdom, but they are inspiring nonetheless.

And here are nine marvellous and intriguing blogs in no particular order, and if you feel that your weblog should be here too, then you are right, it should be, and I’m very sorry it isn’t.

Pieces – Not only has Michelle introduced me to many, many new writers (as so many of you do) but she demonstrates the virtues of slow reading and close reading. She writes as if she’s really marinated in a text; she pays attention at sentence level and remarks on details and textures which can so easily be missed in a single post about a book.

Still Life with Books – Violet was a blogger I discovered through the Angela Carter Reading Week. She has an amazing ability to get right to the heart of a book and I aspire to writing the sort of thoughtful and well-structured reviews she seems to dash off effortlessly.

Miss Pickering – How can anyone failed to be inspired by the lush flowers and dry wit of Miss Pickering? She brightens up the greyest of Belgian days.

Jackie Morris Artist – Jackie Morris is an artist, illustrator and writer and I find her posts about how she works endlessly absorbing and beautiful too.

Obooki’s Obloquy – I think of Obooki as the Starship Enterprise of book bloggers, boldly going to some of literature’s furthest and least-trod reaches. Although, truth be told, I’d be scared to bump into him on a dark night...

The Age of Uncertainty – Steerforth is a second-hand bookseller, discoverer of oddities and explorer of the world, well I can’t explain the immense charm and addictiveness of his weblog, it is just lovely, go and read it.

Into the Hermitage – It’s not just Rima Staines’ art which draws me here time and time again although I love to look at it; what really fascinates me is the life she has created and chronicles. She depicts all the magic and wonder in the world around her, and it encourages me to seek the same around me.

Discarding Images – A day begun with a dash of mediaeval insanity can only be a good day.

And now seven facts about myself. Friends, there are many facts but most of them are stupendously dull. No birthmarks shaped like Jesus, hidden musical talents or detachable limbs. So this has been tricky.

When I was a child, I wanted to be a witch when I grew up; some might say that I have achieved that ambition but my whole adult life has been lived with the faint disappointment that turning people into toads and flying around on broomsticks isn’t actually a valid career option.

My mother taught me to read when I was four and instilled in me a slavish addiction to fiction and poetry.

I have lived in Ipswich, Florence, Cambridge, London, Makurdi (Nigeria), Dover and Geel (Belgium). I am still in Geel.

One morning I encountered a rat looking up out of the loo at me. That was an odd moment.

I cannot help believing that everything is alive really. I mean, I know that a pot or a chair or even a book doesn’t really have feelings, but yet... It makes throwing things away really difficult because how will they cope with the rejection?

I can load, clean and fire a rifle. My aim is quite good.

Cows terrify me.

I am off on a surprise camping trip to the Ardennes tomorrow morning, but will be back later this week. If I haven’t disappeared into a big pit of mud and Pot Noodles and wailing.

Friday, 13 June 2014

(Svetlana Petrova, Zarathustra the Cat and Edouard Manet, Can I Help You Sir? found here via here)

It’s a well-known fact that no art is Great Art unless it has kittens in it. While the Rubenesque Zarathustra is no longer a kitten, I think we can all agree that her replacing Suzon as the barmaid in Manet’s A Bar at the Folies Bergère improves it inestimably. No one would dare start a fight with that face looking at them.

Svetlana Petrova is a Russian artist who specialises in photoshopping pictures of her cat onto famous works of art. What a joy of a job! You can see more of her work here.

Happy Friday! (It’s the 13th, I only learnt this after I had got out of bed but the sky hasn’t fallen in yet.)